


7400 Kilometers Away

by I_am_lampy



Series: Open Your Eyes [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Sherlock, I Can't Believe That's Not Already A Tag, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Murder, POV Sherlock Holmes, Referenced/Past Sex With Strangers, Self-Hatred, Strangulation, and not in a fun way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-28 01:57:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10821357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_lampy/pseuds/I_am_lampy
Summary: New Orleans is a fusion of decadence and innocence; of darkness and light. New Orleans is a metaphor for Sherlock and John.New Orleans is also the perfect place to establish a headquarters for a human trafficking ring.





	7400 Kilometers Away

* * *

Sherlock was an incredibly fast texter. He had been texting since texting became available because it was so much more preferable to the human contact required by phone calls and face to face interactions.

John, however, was a slow texter. It worked out well for them in the same way that Sherlock's often manic way of talking was offset by John's slower, pithy manner. John sent brief texts that generally sacrificed grammatical accuracy for expediency. Sherlock sacrificed nothing in his texts.

Sherlock thought it was quite time for him to sacrifice a few things for John. He wanted John to feel comfortable speaking about whatever it was he thought would drive Sherlock away in disgust and he knew John would feel more comfortable if Sherlock willingly confessed the things for which he himself carried an enormous burden of shame and guilt. He knew he had more strength to carry those weights, not because he was stronger than John but because Sherlock had been guilty of terrible things for the majority of his life. John, on the other hand, was a good man and had always been a good man.

* * *

**From me to John Watson:**

I've been attracted to you since I met you but I didn't know I was in love with you until about four months after I went away. I was in Louisiana working with the FBI to get inside a human trafficking ring. One of Moriarty's second tier men was in charge. The FBI team and MI6 (represented solely by myself) found a lower ranking player called Blaine Whitney who was going to be my way in.

-SH

* * *

_Sherlock is standing in the FBI satellite office with two men. One is his handler, Emery Tate. The other is the Special Agent in Charge, Lester Bradley. They are both very good at what they do and they both resent the involvement of MI6. They take it out on Sherlock, who cares not a whit about it so long as it doesn't interfere with his plans._

_"You looking forward to getting some action, Sherlock?" the SAC asks. He doesn't, of course, mean in the sense of "I saw some action in Kabul." He means sex._

_"I'm looking forward to destroying Moriarty's people," Sherlock says with a sneering smile. Fucking Americans._

_"I don't know how you'll get it up," Tate says, sounding genuinely thoughtful. "He's a pretty ugly fucker."_

_Tate is not as much of an arsehole as Bradley but he's a far cry from someone like, say, Lestrade. Lestrade is a better man – humble enough to know he needs Sherlock's help and willing to sacrifice his pride for the sake of the greater good. Lestrade believes in his work and he believes in Sherlock._

_Blaine is not quite, as Tate so elegantly describes him, "a pretty ugly fucker." He's taller than Sherlock and looks like a thug. He's covered with tattoos and shaves his head but he has large, round dark eyes and a wide smile. Sherlock is more concerned that Blaine will suspect him simply because Sherlock is so objectively good-looking. After all, hot people go for other hot people. Sherlock plans to seem a little desperate. A lonely, gay British man lost in the wilds of New Orleans and its vibrant gay scene._

_New Orleans is a city to fall in love with and Sherlock has sudden wistful moments imagining what it would be like to be here with John who would most certainly be scandalized by the mores of New Orleans' citizens, much to Sherlock's delight. He imagines what it would be like to break through John's buttoned up exterior. He knows John is a dangerous man if provoked. He suspects there's something wild and hungry inside of John that John is afraid of exploring._

_He realizes he's in love with John._

_New Orleans is a fusion of decadence and innocence; of darkness and light. New Orleans is a metaphor for Sherlock and John._

_New Orleans is also the perfect place to establish a headquarters for a human trafficking ring. There is the long stretch of coastline on the Gulf of Mexico including the vast network of bayous and swamps along the coast. New Orleans is on the Mississippi River, which feeds into most of the major and minor rivers of America, and runs all the way to Duluth, Minnesota where it meets up with the St. Louis River which empties into Lake Superior. It is the water highway of America. It gives the enterprise a way into Canada and through Louisiana and into Texas, a way into Mexico. If the FBI and MI6 i.e., Sherlock, can get near the leadership, they can take down the entire structure._

_When they finally find their target, Blaine Whitney, and have enough information to send Sherlock undercover, they take great joy in the fact that Blaine is gay and therein lies Sherlock's "in." Sherlock is going to seduce Blaine Whitney. There are no outward signs of harassment towards Sherlock but it doesn't require Sherlock's powers of observation to pick up on the insinuations and innuendos. It shouldn't matter to Sherlock but it does. Sherlock has never cared about romance or sex. His libido is easily quashed and when it isn't, Sherlock is a clinically efficient masturbator. So it is with great dismay that Sherlock finds himself concerned with their disgust towards him._

_Sherlock has never examined his sexual identity. He refuses to satisfy curiosity about his sexual history as well as his identity because the only time Sherlock ever has sex is when he's using. No junkie walks away a virgin. Being high is the perfect pathway to promiscuity. Sherlock finds Mycroft's insistence that Sherlock is a virgin purposefully obtuse. He doesn't want to think about it so he pretends Sherlock is somehow the one addict in all of England who hasn't fucked someone while high. A combination of cocaine and opiates with a sprinkling of ecstasy leads to some fantastic endurance as well, although orgasm is difficult to achieve. But who cares when you're high?_

_Blaine Whitney is their way inside and Sherlock is their way to Blaine Whitney._

_He has no compunctions about seducing Blaine Whitney nor using him. Sherlock isn't bothered with ideas like "honor" and "duty." All he cares about is destroying Moriarty. It will be five years before he discovers that Moriarty was Eurus's puppet. It will be five years before he discovers that five minutes destroyed his life and the lives of everyone Sherlock loves although at that point in Sherlock's life there is only one person Sherlock loves and that one person is John. There are people he's fond of and very much so – Mrs. Hudson. Molly. He respects and admires Lestrade, regardless of how stupid he often is. He loves his parents, of course. He supposes somewhere deep down inside, buried as deeply as he can push it, he loves Mycroft._

_Sherlock knows that his hunt for Moriarty's people is really about revenge and guilt and shame. He loved playing the game with Moriarty. In his very darkest moments, he misses Moriarty and their little dance and he knows that he didn't just want to best Moriarty – he wanted to impress him, too. His confrontation with Moriarty on the rooftop of St. Bart's was not only a blow to Sherlock's pride and belief in his own supremacy; it was a glimpse into the abyss and Sherlock has been skirting the edge of it for too many years to count. When you are the smartest person in the room as well as the building and the city block and the whole city (Mycroft doesn't count) there is always_ (always) _a darkness inside of you that threatens to rise up and overwhelm you. What's the point of your life, you think, when it all comes so easily?_

_John saved Sherlock's life. Without John, there's nothing to live for. Without John, there's nobody to live for. Moriarty stole him from Sherlock and Sherlock intends to steal him back._

* * *

**From me to John Watson:**

Blaine was single and, like most people involved in highly illegal activities, kept his distance with sexual partners. It's easy to get into the bed of someone like him. It's a little harder to stay.

-SH

* * *

_Sherlock is sitting in a gay bar in the French Quarter that Blaine frequents. It's known as a place to find hook-ups but it's a more relaxed atmosphere. Like the traditional pub version of a place to get laid. Obviously, nobody gets laid within the bar itself. While there are plenty of places to do that in the French Quarter, this bar is not one of them._

_Sherlock has been sitting there for four nights in a row and getting antsy. He gets "hit on" (the American version of getting chatted up) by men every night. He tries to act interested but too shy to follow through on anything. Bartenders notice everything; like little old ladies and homeless people, bartenders are one of the few groups of people that Sherlock feels gets even a little bit close to Sherlock's ability to observe. If the bartender sees him putting off every bloke who comes up to him (some of whom are quite attractive) except Blaine, it will be a red flag. Sherlock has no illusions as to the extent of Moriarty's network and any place Blaine goes is potentially full of informants._

_On the fourth night, Blaine comes in. He sits at the bar and greets the bartender. Blaine looks fresh and cheerful. In other words, not someone you would associate with a human trafficking ring. It probably helps that he's not close to the worst parts of it but Sherlock doesn't let Blaine's smiling, garrulous exterior give lie to the horror of what Blaine does. He oversees the distribution of the foreign women (almost all from Serbia, Romania and the Czech Republic) to various pimps. He knows which pimps are sadistic bastards but he only intervenes if the goods are threatened. It's also Blaine's job to recruit pimps. Blaine calls them reps, not pimps. They "represent" the women._

_Sherlock is reading a book about the history of slavery in New Orleans and the birth of the culture of Louisiana Creole. New Orleans was one of the most – if not the most – liberal in attitude towards people of mixed white and black heritage. But slavery is slavery._

_Sherlock can see Blaine glancing at him every few minutes. Blaine tries to be unobtrusive about it but Sherlock can almost feel his eyes every time they land on him and it should make Sherlock's skin crawl – and it most certainly will make his skin crawl later – but right now Sherlock is playing The Game._

_He hears Blaine ask the bartender about him. Their whispering is almost ridiculously loud. The music in the bar is quiet, instrumental jazz and Sherlock filters it out easily._

_It takes Blaine eighty-seven tedious minutes to hit on Sherlock._

* * *

**From me to John Watson:**

I went by William (I know! So unoriginal). Blaine was easy to seduce or rather, he was easy to convince that he was seducing me. My job was to keep him interested. That meant drawing the seduction out. I pretended to be ashamed of my homosexuality. I drew it out for three weeks. I wanted him to be hooked before I capitulated. When he was finally texting me several times a day, wanting to see me all the time, getting distracted and saying things like "you're all I think about" I finally, as the Americans say, "put out."

* * *

_Sherlock has worried about his ability to fake sexual attraction to this man who deals in human trafficking but it turns out he doesn't have to fake it. When a well-muscled, six-foot five, innocent-eyed thug pushes you up against a wall in an alley and kisses you like he is the kindling and you are the match, it's painfully easy to cede control to your body. Blaine's tongue is teasing Sherlock's own and Sherlock lets out an undignified moan._ _The only thing that threatens to dampen Sherlock's reaction to Blaine is the avalanche of guilt that tries to suffocate him and the shame of knowing that there is something very wrong and poisoned inside of him. John has tempered that but John isn't here._

_Instead there's a man named Blaine who's hand is trying to work its way inside Sherlock's trousers and Sherlock is trying to help him because Blaine has given Sherlock an erection. Sherlock wants to run. He wants to run the seven thousand and four hundred kilometers needed to get back to London and back to John. He wants to leave MI6 in charge of taking out Moriarty's lieutenants. He doesn't want to shoulder the burden of being the hero, even though he took it on willingly. He just wanted to slow down the poison eating away at him but now he just wants to sit in the flat on Baker Street with John while John makes him a cup of tea and reads medical journals and novels about war._

_Sherlock has always been secretly impressed by John's sly intelligence. John is not a fool and he is not the shy, unassuming man he presents himself as. Sherlock hates the way John puts on a face for all the women he dates. John isn't himself with those women because he knows nobody likes someone dangerous and volatile and broken. Sherlock does, of course. Sherlock loves the way anger and passion roil in John's skin. If you're paying attention – and Sherlock pays very close attention – you can feel the heat of it on John's skin when you're standing close to him. Sherlock wishes John were gay because he likes to think that as soon as he found out he might have to fake his death to get to Moriarty he would have slept with John. He would've spent as much time as he could memorizing the heat of John's skin and the smell of his neck and the way he kissed and everything else – every wonderful, minute detail of John's essential self._

_"Come home with me," Blaine growls against Sherlock's throat._

_Sherlock is tempted. He's ashamed of that desire but he reminds himself that he is – in a very roundabout and fucked up way – seducing Blaine for John._

_But even Sherlock's moral flexibility can't excuse the way Sherlock gasps when Blaine's tongue works up and down Sherlock's carotid nor the pathetically needy sounds Sherlock makes when Blaine turns Sherlock around and presses him face first into the alley wall they are currently using for its dubious privacy. Sherlock thrusts himself back against Blaine, who's just as hard as Sherlock. He steadies Sherlock's hips with his hands. Sherlock lets his head fall back against Blaine's shoulder._

_"Come home with me," Blaine repeats._

_Sherlock is tempted but he can't. The point of this is to get Blaine hooked on Sherlock. The FBI team responsible for planting Sherlock in Blaine's path needs three weeks to get inside so Sherlock has to keep his dick in his pants until three weeks are up._

_"I can't," Sherlock says. "I have to go."_

_Blaine steps back, letting Sherlock go. Sherlock stumbles back a few paces in the absence of Blaine's body supporting him. Blaine chuckles and Sherlock flees._ _He's already given Blaine his phone number and he knows Blaine has swallowed the hook._

_It takes Sherlock weeks to gather the intel he needs. All he's required to do according to the team plan is seduce Blaine. Nowhere in that plan does it say Sherlock has to have sex with Blaine._

_Blaine has proven himself to be a sensual and gentle lover. They haven't had sex but after three weeks of Blaine begging Sherlock to take him, Sherlock gives in. Sherlock has never felt more disgusted with himself than he is when he eases himself into Blaine but, as is his wont, he chases this high just as much as any other. He and Blaine spend a week doing nothing but fucking with occasional stops for eating and sleeping. Sherlock hates himself for it, but it's the most fun he's had since the game._

* * *

 

**From me to John Watson:**

I enjoyed having sex with Blaine. That's right – I enjoyed having sex with a man who was involved in human trafficking. That's not even the worst part. Blaine found out I'd been gathering intel for the FBI. When he confronted me he said my secret was safe. He was in love with me, you see. He wanted us to run away together. Like all criminals, he had secret stashes of false passports, cash from several different countries, and numerous bolt holes. He said if we could get to Texas we could flee to Mexico and disappear. But my instructions were clear - any threat to the plan had to be neutralized immediately. In short, I had to kill Blaine.

-SH

* * *

 

_"Sh," he tells Blaine as he strangles him._

_Sherlock is weeping. He caught Blaine against the floor and Sherlock is straddling him, his legs trying to keep Blaine's arm's pinned and his arms shaking with the effort of strangling Blaine whose face never stop looking betrayed. He kisses Blaine's lips and chin and cheek while he murmurs "okay" and "sh" over and over, trying to ease Blaine into death._

_When Blaine is finally dead, Sherlock scrambles backwards off of him as quickly as he can. Strangling someone is exhausting and it always leave you breathing hard and shaking but Sherlock knows he's on the verge of having a panic attack. He does everything he knows to do to prevent it from getting out of control but his hands keep shaking even once he's calmed his heart and his respiration rate has returned to normal. He knows he felt nothing for Blaine and now that he's dead, the world is relieved of one bad guy._

_He calls for extraction and safely back in his hotel room, he buries his head into the pillow and sobs. T_ _he thing is – he knows Blaine really was in love with him. It was the kind of love that can turn a bad guy into a good guy and Sherlock knows this because that's the kind of love he has for John Watson._

* * *

**From me to John Watson:**

I strangled him. I looked in his eyes while I did it and I cried the whole time. And then I got high and I stayed that way for three days until my FBI handler got Mycroft involved.

Now you know one of my shameful secrets.

-SH

* * *

Sherlock was a mess by the time John texted him the following morning. He had fallen asleep in John's chair and his mobile had gotten squeezed between the arm and cushion. He cursed while trying to dig it out. He saw two texts from John and his courage faltered just a tiny bit. He knew John well and he knew John loved him but, well. It was a pretty bad thing Sherlock had done.

* * *

**From John Watson to me:**

My battery was dead and I only now have a minute to text you.

–JW

You did what you had to do, Sherlock. There's nothing to be ashamed of.

-JW

Here's one of my shameful secrets - I met a bloke who looked like you so I brought him back to your flat and fucked him in your bed.

-JW

**From me to John Watson:**

Okay, you win.

-SH

Obviously, I'm kidding.

-SH

Did you at least change the sheets?

-SH

Not kidding about that, by the way.

-SH

**From John Watson to me:**

Are you trying to tell me you haven't changed your sheets since you came back?

-JW

**From me to John Watson:**

Ah. Mrs. Hudson does that. I think.

-SH

**From John Watson to me:**

I'm not getting in your bed again until you change the sheets.

-JW

**From me to John Watson:**

Not to encourage you but I'm fairly certain that threatening not to have sex with me unless I do something is a guaranteed way to get me to do what you want. Try to limit the number of times you use sex to bribe me.

-SH

**From John Watson to me:**

You've just shot yourself in the foot, mate.

-JW

**From me to John Watson:**

Do you still love me?

-SH

After hearing my confession?

-SH

**From John Watson to me:**

Completely and utterly.

-JW

**From me to John Watson:**

Excellent! I'm running along to change the sheets now!

-SH

Oh, and I still love you. I noticed you didn't ask.

-SH

**From John Watson to me:**

Sherlock, if you didn't love me anymore you would have said so. You've never been one to be shy about speaking your mind.

-JW

**From me to John Watson:**

Tru dat

-SH

When will you and Rosie be here?

-SH

**From John Watson to me:**

Four.

-JW

**From me to John Watson:**

How soon after you get here can we have sex?

-SH

**From John Watson to me:**

Go away. I'm working.

-JW

**From me to John Watson:**

Me, too!

-SH

I have to change the sheets. I've never changed sheets in my entire life! I'm not even sure where they are. I'm going to have to make tea for Mrs. Hudson so she can help me with this menial chore.

-SH

That's how much I love you.

-SH

I'll even cook supper.

-SH

**From John Watson to me:**

Please don't.

-JW

Now stop texting me and go get Mrs. H.

-JW

**Author's Note:**

> A friend of mine said this reads as though Sherlock raped Blaine Whitney and then strangled him. Rest assured he doesn't. He doesn't want to kill Blaine but he has to and it's extremely traumatic for him.  
> *****************************  
> I always welcome emails from readers about anything that tickles your fancy, even if it's just randomness!
> 
> archiveofMYown@gmail.com  
> Teddy


End file.
